Banter, Nightmares, and Cuddle
by theninth29
Summary: Derek was back in town and saved Stiles from a kidnapping - or - In which a little banter after months of not seeing each other lead to a promising morning.


**A/N: First story about TW! let me know what you think :)**

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It had been ten minutes since Stiles opened his eyes with dull aches all over his body. Neither spoke, as the tension from finally meeting again, literally meeting again, being together in one room and taking a good look at each other, whether or not the several months had change either of them, was slowly eased. They knew they had at least enough time to let it go slowly. Seconds to minutes, they visibly relaxed.

"Thanks for saving my ass." The younger broke the silence.

"Yeah, well, you'd been saving my ass, actually a few times. Think of it as me returning a favor." The older shrugged.

"Who are you?"

"What." He deadpanned.

"What did you do to the Sourwolf?"

He rolled his eyes. "You prefer me bringing a fist or a threat to every conversation we have? Because I don't have a problem with that."

"Hale's threat." The younger rolled his eyes also. "What is it with you guys and threats? Does it run in the family?"

The older snorted. "I guess."

"See? You just laughed!"

"It's a snort, not a laugh. Did you fail your English class?"

"Shut up, big bad wolf. I'm telling Scotty you're bullying me."

"He doesn't stand a chance."

"He and his pack do."

"Not that I and my pack couldn't handle."

"You have a new pack?!"

"...Nope."

The younger let out a hearty laugh. "Welcome home, Derek."

"Thanks, Stiles."

Stiles' eyes widened comically. "Oh my God you just fucking thank me! And was it a smile? I don't know where the grumpiness was gone to, but I definitely could handle the less sour you. How did you know I was where I was again?"

"Scent."

"Yeah and how did you know I was missing?"

"In case you hadn't realized, your father is a sheriff who would yell his lung out when his son is missing."

Stiles faced palm.

They were in his room, with him lying on his bed and Derek sat beside his head. He was injured pretty badly from the kidnapping, especially his right foot. The guy took him to Deaton then to his home, which he was out light a light through the way, and only opened his eyes to find himself in his house.

"Why are you babysitting me?"

"I wouldn't be if your father was here and wasn't asking me to."

"Wait, are you actually worried about me?"

For the second time during their conversation, Derek rolled his eyes.

"Okay big guy, not that I'm ungrateful nor am I rude, but this is getting late and you don't want to be caught by night creatures, do you? I'm safe and sound, now, see? You could go home if you wanted to."

"Stiles, I am night creatures." He quirked an eyebrow.

"Alright smartass. I mean, I'm enough of a burden for the day. You could go home." Stiles repeated.

"I promise your father. For your information, it's not only you, Allison and Scott, too. The differences, they had their parents and Scott also had Isaac."

"You are worried!" Stiles exclaimed. The other shrugged. "Oh fuck now I'm really curious, who the hell are you?"

"Shut up."

"That's the spirit." The younger laughed.

"One of these days, I'm really going to rip your head off. With my teeth."

"Same, old threat. Why didn't you come back sooner?"

"Things there were much complicated than I thought it would be."

"And it turns out here is more complicated than anywhere else you had ever seen."

"Point." Derek nodded. Beacon Hills was more frightening than he first imagined. Even he was a bit taken aback by how thick the atmosphere was with supernatural being.

"Truth be told?"

"What is it?"

"I'm kinda glad you're back here."

Yeah. He was also glad he was here now, that he wouldn't have any regret if anything bad happened when he wasn't around and couldn't fix it to make things better. He was glad he could save Stiles on time. He was glad he could be in the younger's presence in that moment. But by the time he realized he only said it on his head, too much time had passed and it was too quiet to say anything. The silence already crept onto them a bit longer for him to reply with something decent, so he settled on not saying anything, closing his eyes instead.

Derek could hear Stiles' breath became even, in sync with the rise and fall of his chest, and his heartbeat steady, a sign that the human was beginning to fall asleep. Then he heard a car pulled over on the front porch, the Sheriff's. As the footsteps were getting closer to the door of the room he was in, he stood up, ready to leave. The door was opened just as a hand was clutching on his leather jacket.

"Uh..." he looked at the older Stilinski helplessly, who only raised an eyebrow and let out a quiet chuckle.

"It means he wants you to stay."

"But you're here."

The Sheriff shrugged. "Doesn't matter. His bed is enough for two people to crash in. He and Scott used to sleep together until before all of these... incidents happened. They still sleep together whenever Scott comes for a sleepover, just not as often as before. I'm sorry, I don't usually blabber anything out of my mouth like my son does. I mean you could go to bed with him, he wouldn't mind."

A smile, however small it was, crept onto Derek's face at the Sheriff's words. "It's fine. I think I'll go home and pass the offer."

"Alright, let me rephrase that. I insist you spend the night here. You know, even though I don't want to admit it, we both feel safer with someone who could fight. I mean, not fight like my fight, but fight like your fight, you know. Really, I'm sorry, I'm not usually like this." John shook his head and smiled in disbelief at his own behavior.

"It's just... I feel like someone punched me in the gut when I heard my son is missing. The overwhelming feeling that I would lose another family, the only one that I had left, was more than I could handle."

Derek _understood._ He could relate.

He saw the man walked slowly towards the bed, stopped right in front of him and looked at Stiles with a small smile. The Sheriff lift a hand to brush a strand of hair on Stiles' temple, bowed his head to kiss his son's forehead, light enough not to wake the teenager up. A gesture he knew the man rarely showed, if ever, when Stiles was awake.

"Thank you, son." He said to Derek, who was having a hard time digesting the sincere gratitude the Sheriff gave to him and the word 'son'. "Really, thank you. I want to let you know that you're welcome here anytime."

Derek smiled then, bowing his head a little. "Yeah."

"I'll be downstairs. Call me if anything happens."

And then the Sheriff was gone. Carefully, Derek detached the hand on his jacket and opened it, showing only a black t-shirt underneath. He crawled under the blanket, finding himself, albeit reluctantly, drapping an arm over Stiles' body, drawing them closer. Only then he could feel the shaking of the body beneath him, although only barely. _Nightmares_. He held the teenager tighter, letting the young man, not a boy anymore but yet on becoming an adult, clutched onto him for the second time that night.

He waited, waited until the shaking was gone, all the while was wondering why he cared, why did he do what he did.

Then he remembered the feeling, the overwhelming feeling, when he heard Stiles was missing. Like someone had punched him in the gut. The feeling of losing someone, he didn't quite ready to admit it yet, but someone, who actually mattered, who saved his ass in more than one occasion, who never failed to light up the hard situation with a strange level of sarcasm, joke, and stupidity. Someone, who, despite his lack of trust, still did many things to help him. And surprisingly, one of the few—very few—people who never betrayed him.

Then he remembered the Sheriff's words. He didn't lie, _he_ _could relate_.

He didn't know how long he was lost in his thoughts, probably minutes, maybe more, but when he took a look at the sleeping figure beside him, he sighed in relief. Stiles' body had stopped shaking. He then carefully closed his eyes, letting his body relaxed but not really sleeping, not when something, he didn't know what, was clearly targeting this person who lied next to him.

Derek's eyes snap opened as he felt the body beneath him shifted a bit, the sun had risen, amber hues were slowly revealed. He was secretly grateful that the other didn't comment on their... intimate position.

"Wow, dude, how did you do that?" Stiles being Stiles, unable to keep his mouth shut even just for a minute, broke the comfortable silence with his not-so-clear and not-so-intimate question.

"Do what."

"That."

"Yes. Your question is so specific that I'm left speechless on what to answer. Seriously, Stiles."

"Oh my God, you're not just using my sarcastic way of speaking, are you?"

"I hate to say this, but you're rubbing off on me. Now answer the question before I rip your head off—"

"With your teeth, yes. I'm sorry. That, I mean, since Nemeton, I've never been able to sleep properly without having nightmares, you know? To the point that sometimes, I give up sleeping all along and just doing research all night or watching midnight shows. You just cut off the records by sleeping, uh, beside me? Or maybe practically on top of me? I mean no, I don't mind, you helped me get rid of my nightmares, so I just wa—"

"Stiles." Derek cut him off.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"I'm sor—" and then there was a pair of lips on Stiles'. Wait, scratch that. There was Derek's pair of lips on his.

The pressure was barely there, but he was sure Derek fucking Hale just kissed him. And it wasn't half bad as what he imagined, not that he ever imagined it. Okay, okay, he did imagine once or twice... or more than that. In fact, to be honest, if he was even ready to be honest with himself, he liked the feeling. Fuck, he _loved_ the feeling. The next time he knew it, Derek pulled away.

"If I knew it could effectively shut you up, I would've done it a long time ago."

"Really?" Stiles asked, still in a daze.

"No, maybe not. Not really. You're pretty annoying back then. Still pretty annoying now."

Stiles snorted, the back of his mind was wondering how their role in conversation turned itself around, with him gave one tentative word and Derek offered a full proper sentence. "Yeah. I wouldn't let you do that ever again."

"Really?"

"Hmm, no. Not really." And then the two chuckled. "You know, for your ability to chase away bad dreams, would you stay the night with me again?"

"Sounds like a proposal to me." The teasing tone was contrast to the soft expression on Derek's face.

"Works either way." Stiles winked playfully while inching closer to the older's face. He stopped in his track when he heard a cough from a familiar voice, the door was unwittingly opened. His father. He let out an inaudible groan of exasperation, one that only Derek could hear. The chuckle Derek let out convinced him that the sourwolf knew his dad was coming, the sneaky bastard.

"Breakfast is ready, boys." His dad said, turned around to go downstairs, stopped, and looked at Derek to say, "And no matter how much I don't bother with how your relationship turned to be over one night, I really don't need to see what you're about to do before I came. When we eat, we eat. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Yes, Sheriff."

The oldest nodded, satisfied.


End file.
